Band Life
Saturday, January 19, 2013
Band Life Music Tape it or leave it: Considering the cassette release
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 01.19.13 at 09:00 AM
Saturday, January 5, 2013
Paranormal Band Life Music Cold studios, writer’s block, sound science, and SATAN!
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 01.05.13 at 10:00 AM
Dudepants: I think I may need to cut the fingers off some new gloves. It's too fucking cold in the studio . . . It's crazy cold.
me: You can buy fingerless gloves, you know.
Dudepants: Maybe I need to erect some sort of tent where the mixing board, computer and keyboards are. Like, I'll have to leave the tent to play the drums . . . but just the drums.
me: You could build a pyramid. Hey, can you help me?
Dudepants: What do you need help with?
me: I need help figuring out what. The fuck. I'm going to write my blog post about.
Dudepants: hmm
Well . . .
Dudepants: god, I don't know . . .
me: Maybe I should write about how you made a recording of your dishwasher. That's what my brain sounds like right now.
Dudepants: You could write about drones. Or about what it is that makes former rock-types start recording drones instead of rock-type songs, but that's a real can of worms.
me: Maybe I should write about how diminished chords used to be illegal.
Dudepants: Write about the Devil's CHORD!!
me: SATAN!
Dudepants: No, seriously . . . that interval.
me: What is it exactly? A flatted fifth?
Dudepants: The beginning of Purple Haze. It’s a half step between a fourth and a fifth. It was apparently banned for a while from compositions by the Roman Catholic church.
me: Because of SATAN!
Dudepants: Or something like that.
god my fingers are so cold I can barely type
me: Do you know about the brown note?
Dudepants: ha . . .
Next question.
Why don't you do it on iDRUGS!!
me: Do what? Play the brown note? On drugs?
Dudepants: No, the mp3s that make you HIIIIGH
me: Ohhh!! Hmm . . .
Dudepants: It's old news by now: http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/07/digital-drugs/ but still interesting.
me: That's a good idea. Maybe I should experiment on myself and write about that?
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Paranormal The Internet Band Life Music Postapocalyptic notes from the future
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 12.22.12 at 10:00 AM
Dear Uncle B,
When the Great Library at Old Chicago was found I guess it was like about 1,000 years after the End of the World? I dunno. It was way before my time. But it was quite the sensation, so I hear. Well, I mean, among The Reading anyways. Not that you can like really blame folks who have decided to condemn it. Technically, reading did once get us all into a metric shit-ton of trouble.
Saturday, December 15, 2012
$$$ Band Life Music Backstage tour rider: a holiday listicle
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 12.15.12 at 10:00 AM
'Tis the season for list making, and since everyone on the Internets is doing it, so will I. Here's an ultimate backstage tour rider compiled from some ultimate backstage tour riders.
Some awesome ice cubes (Foo Fighters)
A really good salad (Foo Fighters)
"Some crackers and maybe some dips. Hummus and taramasalata. Today the world, tamarasalata." (Iggy Pop)
Two (2) seven-passenger Cadillac limousines (air-conditioned if possible), with chauffeurs (the Beatles)
White room, white flowers, white tables, white drapes, white candies, white couches (J. Lo)
Saturday, December 8, 2012
We're Old Band Life Music How old is too old to rock?
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 12.08.12 at 02:00 PM
Many, many years ago I went out with a fellow Chicago musician to watch some aging indie rockers perform. My friend leaned over to me and said, "If I'm still doing this when I'm forty, please . . . just stop me." Said rocker is now over 40, still playing music, still gracing the stages at our favorite venues, and still killing it. Although I have a hazy recollection of promising him I would, I'm not about to stop him.
There was a time when a younger version of myself thought that one day I, too, would be too old to rock. I had a desperation to make records, to tour, to get things done before I reached this elusive, yet seemingly inevitable, end-of-rocking age. I voiced my self-reflexive ageism to my bandmate, expecting her to feel the same. She responded by showing me photos of Kim Gordon looking hot with a bass at 50, and then presented a hypothetical octogenarian perk: we wouldn't even have to get up to turn on our amps—we could flip the switch with our canes. Still indignant, I retorted by saying that, Fine, I'll play drums so I'm further back onstage in the darkest corner so the kids will never know that I'm old.
The older, wiser version of myself knows now that my mentality at the time was just fucking stupid.
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Paranormal Band Life Music Booze, blood, and plasma balls: band rituals for inspiring creativity
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 12.01.12 at 02:00 PM
It's rumored that Billy Corgan had a rule that his banddudes were not allowed to have sex on the day of a show, and for good reason—letting go of that load means lower energy levels for guys. Women, on the other hand, have reported feeling more energized and creative postorgasm. A certain Chicago musician inspires lyrics by jumping up and down for hours while listening to mixes through headphones, thus inducing the production of endorphins, which boost creativity. "It is conducive to vivid image creation," he says. Similarly, my song ideas come to me while I'm walking and nowhere near my instruments. That makes sense, I guess—the scientists say that your brain chemistry changes after you walk two miles.
Saturday, November 17, 2012
Things I Love Band Life 90s Nostalgia Music Mixtapes: the gifts that keep on giving
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 11.17.12 at 02:00 PM
Fear not, small grasshoppers! You shall stand strong in the holiday chaos! And you can give the gift that keeps on giving. You will give unto the world . . . the Mixtape. It will cost nothing but your soul.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Band Life Music Author and comedian Brian Costello shares more notes from the rock underground
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 11.10.12 at 02:00 PM
Saturday, November 3, 2012
Band Life Music The Axl Rose disaster revisited
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 11.03.12 at 02:00 PM
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Broken Band Life 90s Nostalgia Music Performance anxiety (the stage kind, not the sex kind). Also, Cat Power.
Posted by Andrea Bauer on 10.27.12 at 02:00 PM
- Stefano Giovannini
- Cat Power
A million years ago, I saw Cat Power for the first time at Schubas. At the time, I was deep in the throes of 90s indie rock—probably because it was the 90s. I was fresh out of college, armed with my unrealistic dreams and the whole world sprawled out before me . . . unveiling a fascinating, shimmering cloud of doom full of twentysomething disappointments. My roommate and I shared a tiny apartment that we cleaned every other . . . never, and we basically existed on top of each other as we haphazardly navigated our freshman year of life. The only thing that held any shred of certainty was that a dirty, fingerprinted, scratched-as-fuck copy of Cat Power’s Moon Pix was on constant rotation in the CD player.
